


Moscow, Rhymes with Snow

by wildandbeautiful



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:31:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9378596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildandbeautiful/pseuds/wildandbeautiful
Summary: They are waylaid to Moscow for three days.





	1. Chapter 1

**i.**  

They are waylaid to Moscow for three days before they are expected to leave by train to Novosibirsk. It is, satisfyingly, snowing when they arrive. Gaby does not know what she expects to find in the city during her first visit, the home base of her enemy, capital of her childhood oppression, home of her illicit lover. But, she did expect snow.

She is less prepared for everything that follows this initial impression. The people she sees in the airport and from the car that is waiting for them look well-fed and well-dressed. They chat casually as they walk down the streets. They wear fur and jewelry. They laugh. They are not as fashionable as the peacocks in Italy, not as blase as the parisiennes in France, not as energized as New Yorkers. The city does not hold the glittering sights Gaby has experienced in the West over the past couple of years, but it is not as far off as she would like.

Gaby’s trained eye spots the officers on the street, both in uniform and in plainclothes, but they are not the domineering statues that she remembers. Most of the buildings they pass are unremarkable, but there are palatial figures dripping bold colors, spires that pierce the sky. Red banners proudly protrude from the tops of high towers. Gaby does not find the fear, despair and ugliness of her past.

This is not the Soviet stronghold of East Berlin. This is Illya’s Russia.

(That point was already argued on the plane—“Is not how it is pronounced, Cowboy. There are no cows in the capitol.”)

The car takes them to a hotel where Illya ushers them to the dining room. Crystal chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceilings. Marble: in the lobby, on the floors, built into the tables, in the columns. Politicians and other high-ranking officials litter the room, laughing and speaking rapid-fire Russian.

Gaby assumes the high-ranking official sitting flush to her elbow is the reason that they are allowed here today.

Napoleon is Napoleon. He flirts, badly, with the waitress.

“The most beautiful women are from Russia,” he says, winking in Gaby’s direction.

She scoffs, but notices Illya tense, notices the way the waitresses eyes linger on him, notices how her spidery legs defy physics.

Illya, for his part, ignores the woman except to order tins of caviar, dishes of borscht, plates of pickled sides and round upon round of vodka. So much vodka. Which they drink out of chilled shot glasses. Gaby raises her eyebrows as Napoleon when Illya orders the tenth round. He only hiccups back.

Unlike usual, Illya matches them drink for drink—but never appears to lose any of his composure. Gaby starts to wonder if he is pouring it into a glass under the table when they aren’t looking. The atmosphere in the low-lit room is jovial.

“You’ve been here before?” Gaby accuses after her shot. Illya nods but looks at the room instead of her.

“A few times,” is all he says.

“Hmm,” she hums. She licks cream from a blini from her finger. Illya tracks the movement with his eyes. “So how are the accommodations? Up to snuff I suppose.”

He shrugs. “I suppose.”

She huffs at his brusqueness.

She is letting the liquor fuel her anger. She is uncomfortable in a room full of KGB. She is stricken by how beautiful Moscow seems to be. She is annoyed that Illya is ignoring her.

She orders the 11th round.

***

The room is not only up to snuff, it is quite luxurious. Gaby muses that she’ll be able to appreciate that more in the morning, when she isn’t drunk out of her skull.

She and Napoleon collapse on the settee in a fit of laughter.

Napoleon goes on, “The KGB come out two hours later with a bear beat to hell. So the bear is yelling, ‘Okay! Okay! I’m a rabbit!’”

Gaby dissolves in a fit laughter and fears tears might spring from her eyes. Illya walks restlessly around the room, checking the lamps and electrical sockets, throwing them dirty looks all the while.

“You should stop that. Can be problem here.”

“No, wait, I’ve got a great one about a parrot,” Napoleon rebuts.

“Is not funny.”

“Oh yes it is,” Gaby sighs. “And even if they have bugged us, let them listen. I don’t care.”

To that he says nothing, but his dark silence burns through the room right at her.

“They are all Russian-born jokes anyways,” Napoleon says as he lights a cigarette. “Okay how about this? _Comrade, is it true that you collect political jokes? – Yes – And how many have you collected so far? –Three and a half labor camps.”_

Their laughter rolls on.

“Yes, we had that one back in Berlin about the Stasi,” Gaby hiccups.  

Illya sighs, aggravated, “You should go to bed now, Cowboy.”

“He can stay on the couch,” Gaby says, grabbing the vodka bottle they’d brought with them to the room. She splashes more in both of their glasses.

“I do not think that is appropriate,” Illya says lowly.

“Why? It’s not like there will be anything going on this room tonight he can’t be privy to,” Gaby says brazenly—mean.

Illya balks at her before quickly recovering and stalking off into the bedroom. The door slams with a thud of finality.

Napoleon whistles. “Way to emasculate your man, Gabs.”

Gaby shrugs it off with a sip.

“I think I will turn in. Give you the couch, since it looks like you’ll be bedding down here tonight,” he says eyeing the closed door.

“Oh please,” Gaby argues. “Like he would ever make me sleep on the couch. I should try it just to make him feel bad.”

“Ease up on him a bit, huh?” Napoleon says as he heads toward the door of the suite. “He doesn’t like being here anymore than we do.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” she whispers to the closed door after he leaves.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

ii.

Gaby wakes to an empty bed the next morning. When she’d gone to bed Illya had pretended to be asleep already, radiating anger in the darkness. Luckily, Gaby was drunk enough to ignore it and curved her back towards his, not moving an inch from her side of the bed the whole night. Unluckily, Gaby is now hungover enough to just crawl out of bed to the bathroom. The expunged contents of her stomach taste of vodka and pickled beets, and she doesn’t know which makes her gag more. She sits on the floor of the walk in shower, letting the water run over her until she gathers the strength the face the day (which is to say: for about 30 mins). 

She emerges to the blissfully overcast lobby dressed in her fur-lined coat and sunglasses. Illya is sitting in an armchair reading the paper. He spots her before she can get away. 

“You look alive,” he says, giving her a smile that’s more jovial than the mood last night.

“Barely,” Gaby croaks. “What’s in Russian vodka? Lighter fluid?”

He laughs and grabs her arm. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

He smiles at her more than she thinks she deserves after her behavior last night, but she is grateful for the favor. He teases her and makes up stories about their surroundings as they walk through Moscow. He is her Illya again and she’s more than game to be his Gaby.

“See that bench? This is where I save woman and child from gang of street criminals when I am 10,” he says, pointing.

She purses her lips in mock contemplation. “I guess that’s  _ kind of _ impressive. I mean maybe if you had been 7…”

“Did I say 10? I mean to say when I was 7.”

“Oh well in that case,” she teases, gripping his arm even tighter and leaning into him.

He buys her a tea and a vatrushka which helps ease the pain of the thick shard of glass wedged in her frontal lobe. Gaby’s nose is red from the cold and Illya kisses it warm.

They come upon a field and stop to watch children build snow creatures. Gaby stoops suddenly and lobs a handful of snow at Illya’s face. He retaliates almost immediately and she shrieks, laughing as she runs away. She tries to build a real snowball but she’s not quick enough and his perfectly packed globe explodes on the front of her coat.

Ignoring the icy chill and the way the ends of her hair are soaking, she rushes at him.

“Gaby, don’t—” he tries right before she hits him.

She lands on top of him as the snow breaks their fall. His hat has fallen off but he laughs, bringing a handful of snow down on her face. She rolls away from the attack but he follows, his nose brushing her cheek as they flounder in the snow. The heat of her laugh hits his face as they begin to still.

And then his icy lips are on hers. His tongue, however, is hot in her mouth, as his gloved hands hold onto her cheeks. They are kissing in the snow and it is wonderful, especially after the tension of yesterday.

Her teeth chatter as he pulls her up and dusts the snow off of her.

“I need a ushanka,” she jokes.

He walks her back to the hotel and makes a fire as soon as they’re back in the room. He helps her peel herself out of her wet clothes and brings her flannel pajamas as she stands directly in front of the fireplace.

“I’m sure I look like a drowned rat,” she chatters, smiling.

Still in his snowy garments, he wraps her in a thick blanket, kissing the top of her head before going to change himself. When he returns, they lounge on the couch in front of the fire. She lets the steady beat of his heart and the way his fingers stroke her hair lull her into a faint sleep. She’s just napped off the last impression of her hangover when he moves to get up. Gaby makes a sound of disapproval.

“I will be back,” he says softly, kissing her forehead. “Finish nap in bed and then I will be back for supper.”

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“I have to go to Lubyanka. I won’t be long.”

“That’s not part of the mission,” she complains, grabbing his hand before he can walk away.

“Is just a quick meeting. Nothing official,” he kisses her hand and goes to get dressed.

Gaby pouts up until he goes to the door.

“Try not to leave,” he says, the hint of pleading in his voice. “I will be back.”

There is a moment where he looks like he wants to say something else, but thinks better of it and closes the door behind him.

Gaby sighs heavily out of her nose. She phones Napoleon’s room but he doesn’t answer. Left to her own devices, she hatches a plan. She takes a long bath, soaking in sweet oils, before moisturizing herself from head to toe. She does a full face of makeup, with fake eyelashes and a pink lip which she knows Illya prefers to red. She pins her hair up with glittering barrettes. The piece de resistance is the silky lingerie she packed in the back of her luggage—just in case—which she covers with a bright cocktail dress that is fashionable and modern and meets Illya’s high standards.

After all of this it is almost dinner time, but still no Illya. She has a drink. Plays with the radio. Sits on a lounge staring at the wall. All in her perfectly coiffed attire. Almost two hours later there’s a knock at the door.

Like a good agent, Gaby waits, hand near the Makarov hidden under a side table.

“It’s me,” Napoleon says through the door. She still checks the peephole before opening the door.

His eyebrows raise when he sees her. “Peril phoned to tell me to take you to dinner. Can’t wait to tell him what he missed.”

“He’s not coming?” she fumes.

“I guess he got tied up with some of his comrades.’

“Well, I’m so glad he called  _ you _ .” Napoleon can’t even protest before the door slams in his face.

In a rage, Gaby rips the tulle and silk from her body, the pins from her hair, the jewelry from her skin.

She gulps heavily from the room’s crystal decanter and orders room service which she barely picks at as she sit alone in the living room. Illya still doesn’t come back.

She drinks until she can’t see straight and, tactically, falls asleep on the couch. 


	3. Chapter 3

iii.

“Be prepared to weep, Cowboy. Your infatuation with Western art will be put to shame,” Illya says as they make their way through Red Square. The colors hurt her eyes, as Gaby barely finds the will to continue on with them.

The affront on her eyes doesn’t get better once they’re inside of St. Basil’s. Normally she would find it beautiful and awe-inspiring, but because of her sour mood (and hangover) the hodgepodge of the tiles makes her head swim.

Illya sidles up to her. She’d woken up in bed this morning, meaning he’d carried her to it whenever he came in, though she doesn’t remember it. He hasn’t mentioned it, or the chaos she’d left the room in, yet.

Now, he puts an arm around her waist and pulls her to him. “Not feeling well?”

“I guess not,” she says nonchalant, looking away from him.

“We can eat after this,” he says, still soft. “That will help.”

“Fine.” She walks away from him to admire a mosaic. He stares after her but doesn’t follow.

They do go to lunch and Illya orders borscht and tea for her. It does not improve her mood. She is silent and taciturn through lunch, leaving Napoleon to carry the conversation, which he does so well.

Illya orders some syrniki just for her and she’s almost close to forgiving him—warm with tea and fried food—when he stands to leave once they’ve paid.

“I will meet you back at hotel,” he says with a curt nod.

“And where are you going?” she accuses.

“Business.” She opens her mouth to protest but he cuts her off.

“Nothing official. I have to meet a few...colleagues to discuss information. Classified. I will be back at hotel soon.”

Gaby complains, loudly, as he walks away. Soon. _Soon_! She’d heard that before. Napoleon attempts to shanghai her into a bit of day drinking, but she kicks and spits until she winds up back at the hotel alone. She does have a drink at the bar, alone, watching the men and women pass by through the mirror behind the bar. The vodka burns her throat as she sits in a room full of her enemies. When a man, an important type of some sort judging by the uniform, sits next her and smiles she stalks off to her room without a word.

She’s chilled to the bone so she draws a bath so scaldingly hot she can barely sit in it. She’s shaving her legs when Illya comes in. He glances at her but moves to the sink to wash his face.

“How did it go?” she asks after a beat.

“Fine,” he says. “Do you care?”

“Not really,” she muses. “But you do, so I thought I’d ask.”

To that he says nothing, just watches her for a moment through the mirror as she raises her leg out of the water, flexing her muscles.

“Do you mind if I…?” he asks, voice thick.

“If you like,” she allows with a tilt of her head. He undresses while she continues to not look at him and then slides into the tub behind her. She leans up to let him in.

When he asks, he sounds unsure of himself, like in the beginning of them. “Can I...touch you?”

“Yes, of course,” she says, sincere now, guilt leeching into her coldness. “Of course you can, Illya.”

He puts his arms around her and draws her to him. She allows herself to enjoy the heat of his chest on her back, the draw of his breath.

“I know that you do not like being here,” he says softly into the top of her head. “I do not like you being here either. We’ll be gone soon.”

She thinks on that. “You mean _I’ll_ be gone soon.”

“Hm?”

“You do not like me being here, and I’ll be gone soon. But not you. You’ll never really be gone from this place.”

She sighs, a long exhale out her nose and rises from the water. She covers herself with a towel and he follows standing right behind her, eyes inquisitive.

“Here you have work and friends,” she starts. “Food you like—weather you can stand. Pretty waitresses who bring you caviar and vodka. You have your childhood and your family. This is your home, Illya. How can I compete with that?”

She doesn’t sound defiant, like usual, but, instead, defeated. She turns when he says nothing, and goes to bed. He doesn’t follow and she falls asleep, as with many other nights before him, alone.


	4. Chapter 4

iv.  
Gaby is shaken awake far too soon. She knows this because it is still dark outside and their train is not until late morning. She fights grogginess to sit up alert, hand already reaching for the gun hidden in the side table. He deters her though and kisses her calm, lips to her forehead.

“Come, Chop Shop,” he says. “Get dressed. I have things to show you.”

She thinks about closing her eyes just to spite him. But she knows that he will come, drag her out of bed and dress her himself if he has to. She saves her pride and rises. He is quiet even as she bundles herself and leaves the hotel with him. There is a car at the curb and he slides into the driver’s seat. She stares bleary eyed into the waning darkness.

The sky is almost gray by the time they reach the ruins of a hollowed building. Illya gets out and heads towards the entrance. It’s a testament to how much she trusts him that she follows a KGB agent into a Moscow slum. He takes her hand as they mount a crumbling staircase and he maneuvers her up to one of the rooms on the third floor.

“Okay,” she says once they’re inside and he’s still said nothing. “What is this? Why did you bring me here at this godforsaken hour?”

He looks around. “This...is where I grow up.”

She looks then, really looks, looks for Illya in this moldy, cracked place.

“For a time at least. We live here, my mother and I, right as I was being recruited.” His voice is low but it burns Gaby’s ears all the same in the silence of the decrepit apartment. “We live in this room with another family and share bathroom with the floor. We had small divider up, no thicker than the walls themselves. I spend most of my time alone behind it. My mother went out most nights, of course.”

Gaby looks around, looks away.

“I would lay on our mattress and listen to all that was happening. Parties, fighting, yelling, breaking. More violence than not, but sometimes there was laughter. The happiest times were around the kitchen table. We would ration off what little food we had, making all kinds of concoctions with tins of pickled fish and bread. Sometimes kasha. My mother would make cake with honey for few special occasions.”

She comes to stand by him in what was once a kitchen. She takes his hand because she can’t not. Because she wants to hold the hand of that fourteen-year-old boy, but he doesn’t live here anymore.

“Gaby,” he says and he almost chokes on it. “You speak of my home. A place of comfort and safety. But this place that you talk about, of caviar and vodka and friends, this is not the Moscow that I know. You think that because I am not from East Germany that I am not prisoner but—”

“Shh,” she puts her finger to his mouth, chases it with a chaste kiss. “You don’t have to explain. I–I understand. I’m sorry. I know that I’ve been cold, but I was so angry at the thought of of losing you to this place.”

He kisses her palms. “You are my home now.”

The thought is both exciting and terrifying to Gaby. She pulls him down and kisses him but he pulls away all too soon.

“Can I show you something else?” he asks already leading her out by the hand.

They end up on the roof where Gaby can see the sun making its ascent, lighting the bitter landscape. From this new vantage though it's easy to overlooking the decay and appreciate the natural beauty of the snow and ice, imbuing the city with possibility.

“This is where I would come when I was angry or sad,” Illya says wrapping his arms around her from behind. “I would think about getting something better.”

She covers one of his hands with her own. “And you did.”

His breath is hot on her ear when he says, “Yes, I did. Though I think I am still working for her.”

She turns and his lips are waiting for her. He kisses her to a blush even as the air bites her skin.

“Our train doesn't leave for a few hours. If we go back to the hotel now…” her voice is thick.

“Let's go.” He kisses her nose. She's giddy as they head back to the street. “Oh yes one other thing.”

She's almost annoyed that he's stopped but then she see what he produces from his jacket.

“Now you are like real Russian,” he says placing the furry hat atop her head. She let him tug it into place and smiles as he leans in for another kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

v.

They hurry through the snowy streets, hands and arms gripping each other. Ice blocks float in the water as they cross by. Illya suddenly gets an idea and leads her towards the shoreline.

“Illya,” Gaby complains good naturedly.

“Just a moment,” he waves her off. He begins the shuffle out of his jacket, his sweater, shoes, socks, trousers. They all end up on the ground until he's standing before her in his underwear.

Eyes wide Gaby nearly bites, “ _What_ are you doing?”

He's lost his mind, she thinks, if he believes she'd fuck him on a snowbank. But instead he leaves her and heads towards the water where the ice is broken.

“Is custom,” he calls. He splashes into the water, doing a backstroke once he's far enough in.

She laughs, a high, delighted sound. Sure enough, when she looks down the shoreline there are other naked men slipping into the chilly waves.

“You're going to get sick,” she says, but is still laughing.

“Never. I have good Russian immunity.”

She shakes her head as he reemerges. He quickly covers himself, soaking his clothes through with ice water. He tries to kiss her as he approaches but she pushes him away.

“Uh uh, you're all wet.”

He playfully grabs at her as she starts towards the hotel again. She pulls on his hand. “Come on, let's get you into a hot shower.”

She bites her lip as she says it and he aimlessly follows, eyes transfixed on her, all the way back. Once inside their room she pulls at her winter garb with the help of his restless hands. He balks at how many more layers he has to get through to get at her skin.

She helps him out of his soaked sweater but once she's down to her panties he crowds her against the wall, leaving on his pants.

“Impatient,” she clucks as he pulls on her underwear. She doesn't blame him. They hadn't made love since they'd been in Russia.

On his knees he lifts her legs over his shoulders, taking her weight like it's nothing. His mouth is freezing when it meets her where she's molten. She gasps, fingers knotting in his wet hair.

He licks into her until her back aches and her legs go weak. A hair tug is his signal to let her down, which he does, reluctantly.

After that it's the shower, three times hotter than he would usually prefer. Steam clings to their sweat slick skin and he fucks her from behind. Their fingers slide on the tile of the walk in, grasping for purchase, for each other.

Illya fucks her—his East German Chop Shop girl, his defector, his Gaby—right under the nose of the State. They are loud, languid and greedy in their indulgence, moving from the shower to the bed, from the bed to sitting area. They fuck as if it's nothing. They fuck like it's everything.

Gaby is joyful, triumphant, satisfied. With Illya on her, his skin under her fingers, taste in her mouth, breath on her neck, she feels unequivocally, unmistakably: love.

…

Illya and Gaby are _not_ late to meet Napoleon, but they still do little to hide their morning activities. Napoleon's remark dies on his tongue when Gaby shoots him a warning glare.

On the train, Napoleon orders them hot vodka. “So, Gaby, how did you like your first trip to Moscow?”

“Well,” Gaby considers, “I drank vodka and ate borscht. I got to wear a ushanka...And I fucked a KGB agent in a Soviet hotel.”

Beside her Illya chokes on his drink.

“So, overall, a success.”

“I'd say so,” Napoleon raises his glass in cheers.

Illya grumbles but eases into the good mood and the drink. Besides, it is hard to be annoyed after the morning.

They watch the landscape fly by and Gaby gets her first look at the real Russia. The cracked places with beaten, resilient people. The poverty and the hunger—it all bares itself outside their train car.

When they pass the town where his mother lives now—shuffled off into their small former dacha—Gaby, snoozing on him, tightens her grip on his arm. Even though she has no way of knowing his mother is out there, though she is half asleep, she unconsciously offers him comfort right when he needs it.

As Illya looks at his motherland, he remembers his words from earlier and thinks, yes, nothing has ever felt more like home than the woman beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even particularly fond of this. They don't put their faces together enough for my liking, but here it. Mostly, I wanted to use some A+ Soviet political jokes. 
> 
> (Disclaimer: Btw I've never been to Moscow and certainly was never in Moscow in the '60s, so forgive any inaccuracies.)


End file.
